D.H. Lawrence

Happy scandalous anniversary to Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl'

2013-03-25 13:56:00

On this date, March 25, in 1957, Allen Ginsberg helped make literary history. That's because 520 copies of his poem "Howl" were seized by U.S. Customs agents on charges of obscenity. Ginsberg and his publisher, City Lights, would fight those charges --...

More real-life 'Downton Abbey': Notes from a life 'in service'

2013-02-18 12:51:00

In a blog post last week, I linked to an obit for Florence Wadlow, a real-life Mrs. Patmore. Afterward, I received a fascinating email from a reader named Trevor Middleton. Because "Downton Abbey" seems to be all anyone can talk about today (Did something...

Sylvia Kristel dies at 60; star of erotic 'Emmanuelle'

2012-10-19 00:00:00

Actress Sylvia Kristel, the Dutch star of the hit 1970s erotic movie "Emmanuelle," has died of cancer in the Netherlands. She was 60. Kristel died in her sleep Wednesday night, according to a statement from her agent, Features Creative Management. Her...

Shulamith Firestone dies at 67: wrote feminist classic 'The Dialectic of Sex'

2012-09-02 00:00:00

Shulamith Firestone, whose 1970 book "The Dialectic of Sex" became a feminist classic with its calls for a drastic rethinking of women's roles in the bearing and raising of children, was found dead Tuesday in her New York City apartment. She was 67. A...

Go ahead and indulge — it's Taormina, Italy

2011-07-04 00:00:00

I am sitting on the balcony of the Grand Hotel Timeo eating almond-flavored granita (a kind of Italian sherbet) for breakfast and thinking about Lady Chatterley. More accurately, I am thinking about the real-life inspiration for Lady Chatterley —...

Esquire, adding fiction ebooks, goes back to the future

2012-05-21 16:36:10

Barney Rosset dies at 89; publisher fought censorship

2012-02-23 00:00:00

Barney Rosset, the renegade founder of Grove Press who fought groundbreaking legal battles against censorship and introduced American readers to such provocative writers as Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet, died Tuesday in...

Ken Russell dies at 84; director of 'Tommy,' 'Lisztomania'

2011-11-29 00:00:00

Ken Russell, the often controversial British director known for his flamboyant visual style in films such as "The Devils," "Altered States" and the Who's rock opera "Tommy," has died. He was 84. Russell, who lived in Lymington in southern England, died...

Happy birthday, Edward Gorey! And more book news

2012-02-22 16:34:38

Royal 'I dos' and more at Westminster Abbey

2011-12-04 00:00:00

The bride was beautiful. The groom was a handsome prince. Two billion people around the world watched the wedding ceremony performed in April in Westminster Abbey. I was one of them. Even though my London flat is around the corner from the abbey, my...

Michael Stern Hart dies at 64; e-book pioneer

2011-09-09 00:00:00

Michael Stern Hart, a burly rebel whose vision of a literate society led him to pioneer the electronic book decades before the spread of the Internet, has died. He was 64. The founder of the online library Project Gutenberg, Hart had been in poor...

Discoveries

2011-07-31 00:00:00

East of the West A Country in Stories Miroslav Penkov Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 226 pp., $24 Miroslav Penkov hit American shores in 2001 (he was 21) from his native Bulgaria, and he hasn't stopped writing (or winning prizes for his wild, homesick...

Barney Rosset, left with Norman Mailer, was considered by some to be the most important publisher of the 20th century. At Grove Press, he fought censorship, winning the right to publish "Lady Chatterly's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" in the U.S. He died Feb.

2012-08-13 00:00:00

Dancers of La Compagnie Julien Lestel of France perform in "Constance", choreographed by Julien Lestel, during the Malta Arts Festival 2010 in Floriana, outside Valletta.

2010-07-19 00:00:00

s classic novel. Despite her willingness to bare her breasts and then some, Jackson wasn t exactly Playboy centerfold material.

2009-01-16 12:52:51